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The USS Taylorholic Durant is considered to be the Flagship of the UFS Fleet. We are honoured to have Admiral Mike Calhoun as our former CO and as a current crew member, as well as other luminaries. We support UFSA as much as we can and we provide mentorship to the JOOP & CGSD graduate programs.
We roleplay in-world on a drop-in and scheduled basis. We also add to our history and environment by writing RP Narratives, Mission Logs & Personal Stories for the UFS forum.
Inspired by the ship's namesake, the late Admiral Taylorholic Durant, crew members work to exemplify the behaviour, actions & vision of United Federation Starfleet in everything they do. Our first rule: to be kind to one another. And have fun.
Please note we practice Post Order (P.O.) and One Post in our Roleplays. For further info, contact the C.O.!

PREAMBLE: A suspected, unidentified Romulan agent, who masqueraded as medical Ensign known as 'Caitlin Colville,' had close contact with Admiral Poison Toocool when the Admiral was in Durant sickbay at the start of the conflict with the Romulans. Nanites were used, apparently to 'cure' the Admiral. However, she was not sick before she arrived on Durant, and those medical nanites seem to have now disappeared.

The false Colville disembarked at Space Station Alpha Therapévo, with the Admiral, to oversee her care and keeping, while the Durant continued its mission with the Fleet task force. After the battle was over, certain facts came to light which led to the start of a search for the suspected agent. Station security responded to Starfleet Intelligence's long range comms, insisting they only have a record of Colville's arrival, and that, despite an alleged thorough search of records and the facility, she has not been located. They also claimed to be going through records of ships and shuttles leaving the facility since the Admiral arrived. However, the replies to the questions transmitted by Starfleet Intelligence were intermittent at best -- and the Intel officer on the case suspected that there may be someone on the inside working to scuttle the investigation.

The Durant subsequently arrived at SS Alpha Therapévo, expecting the cooperation of the station security team and easy access to any information that would assist them in tracking the suspected Romulan agent. They also intended to pick up Admiral Toocool. Upon their arrival, the station's head of security - a civilian known as Lyudmila - insisted the station was on lockdown and that no one could come aboard. Suspecting this to be a ruse to avoid questioning and a search of the station, Commander Evelyn Rieko made some veiled threats and took the Durant to red alert to put pressure on Lyudmila to allow the Starfleet team to board the station. Lyudmila capitulated and five Starfleet officers were permitted to beam over, and have a short meeting with her. She insists Toocool is not aboard the station, but has not provided any further information about the Admiral's whereabouts.

Commander Rieko asked Lyudmila to show her around the operations deck before beaming back to Durant. Other members of the Away Team requested to go to the Promenade to get some baking to take back to the ship. But havoc ensued when Comm Jordan and Ens Elton were found in Sick Bay instead of on the Promenade. Cmdr Rieko managed to thwart Lyudmila's attempts to kidnap the Away Team . After disabling the station's shields and weapons, Cmdr Rieko quickly gathered her wits and returned to Durant with the rest of the team, leaving the hapless SS Alpha Therapévo licking its wounds. Comm Jordan has in his possession a tricorder with encrypted information that was downloaded from the station computer in the nick of time.

Now several tasks need to be completed.

Helm and Tactical I must work together to ensure the Durant leaves the environs of SS Alpha Therapévo safely, preferably without being followed. Tactical will commence the collection of data, recording warp trails and engine signatures leaving the station, estimating time index of departure and direction of course. Helm will plot these on an astrometric chart for review.

Mission Operations must work on the tricorder to extract the encrypted information and decipher it. Determine the language of the encoder and translate it.

Command must work on a complete and detailed briefing of the encounter on SSAT, and make strong recommendations for followup action to be taken to curtail Romulan activity in the area and do a thorough investigation of Lyudmila.

Science and Tactical II must comb the medical records of the Durant and Pinastri for clues. Using transporter patterns from Admiral Toocool's various movements, plotted by time index, note any significant changes in the patterns. Look for data on the medical nanites used to heal the Admiral. Where were they manufactured, and by whom.

Engineering has had the opportunity to take copious scans of the station and vessels docked there. Execute a thorough examination of the data, including metallurgical analysis, to determine age, make, model and origin.

While doing what they can, everyone is waiting for the information collected from the station, hoping it will help their part of the investigation tasks. And decide the next course of action.

Hal Jordan sat at the Intelligence station looking at the information from his disguised tricorder. Ensign Elton had transferred an amazing amount of information to him before her tricorder was confiscated. He loaded the information into the COMMS station and began looking at it. "Sir, I have the tricorder information downloaded to my station and I'm starting to look at it now. It appears to be in some language that our computer does not yet recognize. I will continue to massage the data and give you a report when I have something."

Leninah taps into the console, quickly reading up on the mission logs, and raises an eyebrow at the events that unfolded during her study leave. Her fingers move quickly across the screens and the quiet beeps and tones almost composing their own symphony in the background noise of the bridge as her eyes sometimes followed the beat and sometimes anticipated it. She plays the console like a virtuoso, assimilating the details on what had happened and the status of the science functions and the briefing notes for the mission ahead. She glances around the bridge and flashes a smile or two, feeling comfortable, confident and at home again.

Evelyn Rieko looks around the bridge. It is good to back and away from enemies. There is no doubt in her mind that the space station is filled with and run by enemies to the Federation. The level of hostility and that last attempt to gain control of her and Ensign Elton, and in fact the Durant itself, showed we are dealing with hostiles. She'd given her orders upon reaching the bridge. Looking to Hal, "Good work Hal and everyone on the away team. Let's hope we can get some answers from the data Ensign Elton retrieved. Ensign, let's leave this area immediately. Set course for Sector 0081. Reports, everyone. Yellow Alert!"

Rain Elton pulls up screens to check stats, making sure ship's propulsion systems are online and in the green, and feeling a sense of urgency, has already activated the thrusters to start the ship moving. Plotting a simple course directly away from the station, reverses and then yaws the ship 180 degrees away from the Starbase, before the words come out of her commander's mouth. She calculates the odds of the station bringing offensive systems online in response to our activities at approximately 92 percent.

Nems Darkstar: It is good to be back onboard the Durant. That was a long and stressing away mission. Takes stand at his console and starts doing sensor sweeps, but it takes forever to do. Moving his fingers as he starts at one square on the grid at a time to get the right answers on the sweeps.

Janet Gelbert glances around the bridge and smiles back at some familiar faces in their stations. She also smiles at a new face. She feels a slight pressure in her own station in Tactical which has been given the task of combing the records of the Durant and Pinastri for clues. As per Commander Rieko's orders for a status update, she replies, "Commander, I am looking for data on the Medical Nanites used to heal the Admiral. I am trying to find out where were they manufactured, and by whom."

Jordan looked through the LCARS database for information on how to proceed. First, it was necessary to check for and remove any encryption. The information was looking fairly random, but with his practiced eye he could spot repeating characters. Any language had characters that were used more often, and others used hardly at all. The frequency of occurrence of those characters would survive encryption, unless someone was using some brand new methods not known to Starfleet. And there really wasn't much that Starfleet Intelligence didn't know these days. He turns to look at the XO. "Sir, this information appears to be encrypted. It will need to be processed carefully before we can come up with some raw text. I am working on that."

Leni runs the data from the transporter signal analysis of the area around the Alpha Therapevo station through a chain of filtration algorithms to identify type and decay and plot these on a graphical display. The life of a busy commercial station laid out in not unattractive patterns of different colours and hues. As that's being started, she messages a request to Starfleet HQ for permission to access Rear Admiral Toocool's health scans from the records and also transporter buffer logs to build up a picture of her health. This in train, she updates the XO. "Sir, processing the local data on movements for Rear Admiral Toocool first now, and have requested permission to access health data from HQ also."

Rieko sits in the Captain's chair and starts working on her detailed briefing on the encounter at SS Alpha Therapévo. She looks up, and says, "I'm recommending a thorough investigation of this space station and Lyudmila by Starfleet Intelligence. Good, Commander Leni, finding info about the nanites could lead us to Colville and info on Colville should lead us to the Admiral." She looks to Hal, "That's interesting about the language that was used, definitely points to a covert operation there. Let me know as soon as you get data to access the Admiral's health records, Science."

Elton has been plotting various scenarios and makes a decision and calls out to the Commander, "Sir, we need time to analyze the data and know where we will be going. If I may, there is an area 7 point 3 light years from our current position, labeled, 'Klakkr's Drift' and has been marked as a navigational hazard, in that it will certainly disrupt our sensors, communications, and navigation. I propose it as a place to allow us freedom to do that as other ships won't be able to track us as well. I am confident in my abilities to keep us safe as it is a gaseous anomaly".

Darkstar quickly continues to move these sensor sweeps accurately and in depth. There is so much area to go through. Gathering data little by little and storing it into place to thoroughly look over.

Gelbert turns to the XO. "Commander, I have requested all information on the Medical Nanites from Durant sickbay. I am trying to ascertain where they were manufactured. Were they replicated on board or did they come from elsewhere? I will keep you apprised of any progress I make."

Jordan watched the console as the computer cycled through many different tries at breaking the encryption. Under normal circumstances, the process would move along quickly. But for some reason, the computer was unable to find a single character that it could decipher. "Sir, the computer is unable to break the encryption using normal methods. I will run it through some progressively more sophisticated algorithms to try to move it down the road a bit." He smiled internally at his attempt to merge the elite language of bits and bytes with the down-home country language of regular folks.

Leni: As the data is processed, the picture becomes busier and busier, mostly repeating, but some paths standing out more than others. As the blip and bar showing the data has been fully processed is triggered, she looks at the legend bar of filtration controls and immediately filters out all but what should be Rear Admiral Toocool's bio signature. As she waits for the display to completely refresh, she notes the incoming message from Starfleet granting permission to access the health data from the transporters at the various locations and punches this down to the Durant sick bay medical team with an appended request to furnish the data.

Rieko: Lieutenant Nems, continue scanning the area for ships. There's a possibility someone from that space station may follow us. Commander Gelbert, yes, let me know as soon as you get data on the nanites. This is all such a mystery, a puzzle, and we need as much data as possible to put this puzzle together and see the big picture." Looks to Rain, as she runs her fingers through the ends of her hair, thinking, "Ensign, I'm not sure that's a good idea to go into that drift. Let's get close to it but not inside it for now. Keep me apprised of your progress, everyone."

Elton simply nods as she hears her Commander's decision and continues to fly the ship away from the station. As the ship comes close to the edge of the gravitational well, she initiates impulse engines and brings them up to one quarter impulse.

Darkstar, hearing Commander Rieko's command, "Yes Sir, right away." Moving his fingers on the console, carefully studying the area, seeing these sweeps come across the screen. Looks at Commander Rieko, "At this time I am not seeing any ships, but I am optimistic that I am still continuing the sensor sweeps to make sure that no ship follows us and causes the Durant any harm."

Gelbert has requested all information on the Medical Nanites from the Durant sickbay. She taps her screen and begins trying to comb through the data to ascertain where they were manufactured. She searches for clues. She looks for a signature from them that could give away their origin.

Jordan thought back to his Advanced Cryptography classes. His instructor, Chief Goodyear, had been ancient back then. No telling whether he was still around today. But his advice had been sound, and Jordan began to think through the process in a step by step fashion. He brought up his "cheat sheet" on the console and ran down the steps one by one. One of the major problems impeding his progress was that he did not know the original language in which the information was written. This meant that the decryption would take more time than normal. But the truth about repeating characters still held true. Every language had them, with certain ratios among frequent and infrequent occurrence. The computer could identify those ratios and apply them to the text. Then it was simply a process of elimination.

Leni: Examining the now clearer picture of the local movements with a concerned but not too surprised expression, she shakes her head before reporting. "Sir, the data from the local vicinity after the trail of Rear Admiral Toocool leading up to the Alpha Therepevo ends is non conclusive." Pauses for a moment before correcting herself, "Well, it doesn't help in any way as there is no record of the Rear Admiral leaving by transporter whatsoever. That isn't entirely surprising, but leads me to conclude based on this that either a) She is still there, signal masked from our scanners in some way, b) She left by means other than transporter, manual transfer to a ship, or c) She was transported in some way we are unable to detect, a stealth technology we have no working knowledge of." Looks at the XO then around the bridge before adding, "I will be looking at the Admiral's health scans to verify our understanding on her condition before and leading up to arrival at Alpha Therapevo next, Sir, as soon that is as the data is released by Durant medical to Commander Gelbert as she is dealing with them more tactfully than I might otherwise do." Mumbles some less than complimentary remarks about the medical team and their love of official paperwork.

Rieko looks down at her PADD and continues writing her report, making strong recommendations to Starfleet for follow-up action to be taken to curtail Romulan activity in the area and on the space station. She looks to Intel, "Commodore, did you get a scan of Lyudmila, or find any more information on her? She could very well be a Romulan in disguise, physically altered appearance, but a scan of her would tell us what she actually is. More important to find clues to lead us to the Admiral of course, and I did not think to scan her." Shakes her head. "I wonder where they've taken the Admiral and why, and what were those nanites really used for. I doubt the Admiral was really ill, and I believe the theory that she was poisoned to get her into enemy hands. This happened to her at the height of the Romulan War." Looks to Janet. and then Leni. "Yes, Commander Gelbert, be thorough. We don't want to miss anything of importance. Commander Leni, that's interesting and perplexing. Continue with your work. Hopefully we will get some answers from sickbay that may help."

Elton nods ever so slightly as Nems reports no ships in the area, and continues to fly a steady course. Taking a moment, she notes the increasing distance from the Therapévo and actually releases a small breath that upon a moments reflection she realizes she had been holding and quirks an eyebrow at herself wondering at the lack of self control. Meanwhile, she brings up a side screen, bringing up the warp engine status, and makes a mental note to pass along her commendations to the engineering staff on their efficiency.

Darkstar looks up at the view screen then back down at his console. Scratches his head as he moves his hands and looks down and sees a ship on his sweep. Looks up at Commander Rieko, "I am not sure what I am looking at, Sir, but I see a small ship that is not far behind us. I will continue to find out what ship it is and do scans to see what we are working with, Sir."

Gelbert looks at the Durant Sickbay files and wonders that if the Nanites were replicated on Durant, who could and would have replicated them? If they were from elsewhere, who would have and could have ordered them, when would they have arrived, and were they used for any other purpose. Where are they now? She looks to Leni and grins. "Tactful in Tactical?" She turns back to her work, looking for clues. She frowns as she works, as this is heavy concentration. She feels like she is looking for a needle in a haystack as in the old Earth saying.

Jordan watched as the computer appeared to flail helplessly against the impenetrable barrier of the encryption code. He thought back again to the crypto classes, and saw the Chief in his mind, those bright intelligent eyes shining out of the grizzled face. He remembered one class exercise where he and the other students were having trouble deciphering a test message using the LCARS consoles. Chief Goodyear had said "You plebs need to remember that the computer is only as smart as the person who programmed it. You life forms will be directing the computer's search, not simply sitting back and hoping it will do your work for you." Impulsively, he selected a few paragraphs near the middle of the data, and smiled as the computer began to break the code immediately. He turned to the XO again. "The computer now has a handle on this encryption, and it's beginning to break through it. The code appears to be a Romulan cipher that was used several hundred years ago. Maybe they thought we forgot about it."

Leni stores the data away for records along with a detailed explanation of her conclusions, then looks up into the hull pretty clearly searching for inspiration on what to try next to locate where the Rear Admiral may be. She finds herself more out of frustration than anything thought out asking anyone, "We've scanned the station for the Rear Admiral's life signs, obviously we have, but have we tried searching for heat signatures and then matching them with known heat sources? See if we're left with any that are unexplained perhaps? I mean, it's not impossible that they are fooling the scans they expect us to be running, if that is someone is actually hiding the Rear Admiral, but would they be able to stop us scanning for something as old school as heat signatures?" Glances over to Commander Gelbert with a smile "So has your skilful 'tact' resulted in those scans you can send over to me yet? Hmm?"

Rieko: Hearing Hal's report she admires his skills as an Intel Officer and her spirits lift a bit, she says "Great work Commodore! This confirms what we believed, that the Romulans are behind this, and they have our Admiral, I'm sure of it! So they used a Romulan cipher from a hundred years ago. Let me know the data you've found ASAP. It may give us info on where they have the Admiral, and we can adjust our course accordingly." Looks to Nems, "Lieutenant, a small ship? Following us? Scan it and report. Helm, change our course slightly and report if the ship is indeed following us." She looks to Leni, "Commander Leni, I don't think the Admiral is at the space station, but as you said, they could be disguising her signature. Commander Gelbert, any news on those nanites?"

Elton brings the ship to full impulse and calls out a status to the Commander so she knows, "Full impulse". Acknowledging Nems' announcement of a ship that appears to be following us, she begins to plot different evasive scenarios, as a means to be ready for any and all contingencies as is her duty. Awaiting orders to the contrary though, she keeps the ship on the same trajectory in a direct line away from the Starbase. As the Commander calls out a course change, she calls out "Aye Sir" and immediately initiates it and pre-programs a series of movements that should make it obvious if we're being followed.

Darkstar looks up and looks down and back up at Commander Rieko, "Aye Sir." Immediately starts running the scans on the ship that is following us. Looking at the scans and data coming back to my screen. To Commander Rieko, "Sir, it is a small ship that I can see on the scans, it is moving slowly, so that it doesn't show that it is trailing us. That ship looks familiar. It comes from the space station we were just at. Scans are coming in, Commander, and from what I can tell there are ten onboard, Sir."

Gelbert fixes a gaze on a vital signature which gives away the origin of the Nanites. She breathes a sigh of relief as she can now send over the data on the health scans to Leni. "Here you go, Science. Commander Reiko, the evidence is showing that these were Romulan grown Nanites."

Jordan monitored the computer and watched as the encryption melted away, revealing the information beneath. The algorithm was unable to instantly translate the decoded information, though. "Sir, the computer has broken the code. The cryptographers were sly on this one - they included a block of random information at the beginning and end of the data, so it would not be possible to decrypt it. The computer did decrypt an information block in the middle of the data, identified the code, and that revealed the rest of the message. It's in an unknown language, but shouldn't take too long to translate." He hears the XO asking about a scan of Lyudmila. "My tricorder performed a general scan while I was in the station's sickbay. That would have included the atmosphere, all of the equipment, and all of the life forms that were there at the time. We determined earlier that the station occupants may have been wearing devices that would block our scans, but a close range scan might have picked up more data. I am forwarding the scan data to Science for analysis."

Leni after receiving the data from the Durant medical team via Commander Gelbert, acknowledging receipt with a nod and smile, and after a fairly simple comparison, she taps the console and reports once more. "Sir, I can confirm pretty much what was suspected from the health indicators in the transporter buffers from Starfleet vessels and stations. The admiral does not appear to have been ill when she departed Pinastri, but her signs changed whilst onboard the Durant. It's not evident from this data whether her condition deteriorated from the use of nanites or natural treatments or something more sinister, however she was still in that condition when she was transported aboard Alpha Therapevo with the Ensign Colville replacement. As there's no record of a transport away from Alpha Therapevo, I am unable to determine her movements or condition at the time of her leaving the station, if in fact she did leave."

Rieko: "Romulan grown nanites...why am I not surprised?" She looks to Nems, "A small ship following us from the station? Can you scan the crew for Species information, Lieutenant? I wonder who they are and why they are following us. My first impulse is that it's an enemy, to spy on us, to prevent us from finding the Admiral. But it's a small ship. It could be for some other reason.

Darkstar: Looking up from his console, "Commander Rieko, from my scans, from what I can detect, the species that is coming across his console, we have Romulans chasing us. Not sure why or how or what their reasons are. We shouldn't be getting followed, but the Romulans have their reasons Sir."

Gelbert gasps at Leninah's statement. She also listens intently to the XO, Nems and the Commodore's comments. This is turning into a really complicated set of twists. She begins to file her report on her findings.

Jordan ran his fingers over the console, checking and rechecking the results. He sat back in his chair, his eyes wide, and then turned to the XO. "Sir, the computer has partially translated the unencrypted data. At first it thought the language was Dewan, then Dinasian, then Iccobar. But the proof of the pudding was the phrase 'Kandar enar.' There's only one language where those two words appear together. 'Kandar enar' means 'nine' in Iconian!"